NZ women’s rugby’s latest

Image: Mele Hufanga, 18, has been making waves in the women's NPC.

"For the first time since the competition officially kicked off in 1999, the Auckland Storm are at risk of missing the final of the New Zealand women’s National Provincial Championship.

Currently they’re sitting second on the table but are tied on points with third placed Otago. With two weeks to go, only the top two sides go straight to the final.

Auckland have won every year except 2006 when they were beaten by Wellington in the final when a huge number of their Black Ferns were out with World Cup commitments.

Their coach, former Black Fern, Anna Richards says they’re desperate to get two bonus points from their final two games of the season, and hope that neither Otago nor Canterbury pick up two.

She says the issue for Auckland this season has been poor first half starts compounded by injuries and the unavailability of players at certain times. The loss of up to ten players from last year’s squad to new side Counties would be a problem to most sides but Auckland still has a side bristling with talent.

"On paper we should be dominating as we have 13 players who have represented the Black Ferns. We should be doing better than what we are.We beat Canterbury reasonably well in week one, that’s turned out to be our best game so far."

Even though the side is Black Fern heavy, two in the backline, Onjeurlina Leiataua, who is 17 years old, and Mele Hufanga, who is 18 years old, are still very inexperienced.

"We have a pretty young backline which hasn’t clicked yet. I suppose you could say that it’s a leadership thing, in some ways I think the whole team hasn’t clicked."

Canterbury are currently leading with games against Manawatu and Wellington to come. The competition is the closest it’s ever been, and with the New Zealand sevens players available again this weekend, the Manawatu side, sitting fourth, is well capable of upsetting the Cantabs and Otago in their last game of round robin.

Meanwhile Black Ferns coach Brian Evans has been watching the women’s NPC closely and says while the standard is about the same as it was last year, having the two extra teams means he’s been able to spot new talent he wouldn’t have normally seen.

"We’ve got 52 players on our New Zealand training squad right now – including the sevens girls. We’ll be adding another 15 or so more to it so we will hopefully have about 70 players training through the summer in regional training groups."

"Out of the Taranaki team for instance I’ve been impressed by Badinlee Munro-Smith, she makes some great linebreaks."

All Black Beauden Barratt’s cousin number eight Neesha Barratt also gets a mention from Evans as a new name to watch.

Evans says, “Otago have been the surprise package. They don’t rely on any stars, they just have a group of players that play for each other and move the ball around, and they’re rugged.”

There’s still very little on the upcoming calendar for the defending World Champions however. The next date of import is April next year when they have their first camp. Although the good news is it’s been confirmed that the team will have a home Tri-Nations series against Canada and Australia in June next year to warm up into the Women’s Rugby World Cup in France.

Finally the New Zealand women’s sevens team may have lost to Fiji for the first time in both fifteens and sevens history at the Oceania Tournament on the Gold Coast at the weekend, however coach Sean Horan is not even slightly worried.

They ended up third, losing to Australia 7-19 in the pool play and 10-17 to Fiji in the semi. Considering they took five players from the squad that went to Russia, on paper, the results are disappointing.

But Horan says after winning the World Cup and the IRB series this year he felt he could do what none of the other countries could do, and that was try new girls and give them opportunities.

"We took four or five young girls who are the future for us, then a couple of girls who have been in the squad but haven’t played a lot of tournaments. We wanted to see how they adapted."

Counties back Hazel Tubic was one of those girls in the squad who hasn’t really been seen internationally.

"Usually she’s a back but we tried her in a prop for the first time and she went really well."

As for the new players, Sean says touch rugby player Shiray Tane shared the wing role with 17-year-old Michaela Blyde.

"Micheala, when she puts on those rugby boots she just goes for it. She’s the smallest player height wise, coming up against girls twice her size and didn’t bat an eyelid."

"Shiray was just like Carla Hohepa, how she glides. Impressive."

The New Zealand women’s sevens “sisters” next assignment is a mid-November assembly to prepare for the opening IRB women’s sevens leg in Dubai. Eighteen players will fight it out for those spots and expect regular captain Huriana Manual, prop Linda Itunu, and backs Portia Woodman and Kayla McAlister to be back for that.

As soon as that’s concluded there will be extra intensity at the Regional sevens tournaments over November and December, then the nationals early January, as Sean Horan will be naming the professionally contracted squad after that.

Twenty or so contracts are up for grabs, and of course the opportunity to be one of the first professional contracted female players in New Zealand."

Robinson, a commentator and presenter on Sky Sports in New Zealand, voiced the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens and IRB Women’s Sevens World Series, and will contribute regular posts this season for Scrumqueens.com on the women’s game in New Zealand and beyond.